I was asked to write an opinion piece for Publicola yesterday comparing the reaction the Seattle City Council had to ride sharing programs to the reaction they are contemplating to small-lot housing. The truth is I already did that in a post not too long ago. To me, the comparison is obvious. Small-lot housing is an innovation, taking smaller lots and turning them into real houses for a lot less money than developing a big house on a full size lot. This is a lot like the entrepreneurs finding a new way to meet the demand for easy, cheap, and safe transportation alternatives.

But I couldn’t resist a comparison that came to me when I saw a guy walking out of a Safeway in West Seattle one day.

If the city of Seattle regulated hot dogs one can only imagine what the advent of the corn dog would provoke at City Hall. How do we define a corn dog? Is it safe? And about that breading made of corn as opposed to a bun—what have other cities done?

After lots of hand-wringing, committee meetings and confabulations with staff and members of the hot dog community, one can imagine the solution: legalizing corn dogs, but limiting them to sale three days a week and only in Pioneer Square.

I know I was mixing metaphors, but when I read the Wikipedia page about corn dogs I think the comparison makes sense.

Newly arrived German Texan sausage-makers, finding resistance to the sausages they used to make, have been credited with introducing the corn dog to the United States, though the serving stick came later. A US patent filed in 1927, granted in 1929, for a Combined Dipping, Cooking, and Article Holding Apparatus, describes corn dogs, among other fried food impaled on a stick.

Human beings have a remarkable and admirable ability to innovate and find opportunities to meet demands for basic things like food, transportation, and shelter in innovative ways. Why not make that easier? In the case of small-lot legislation offered by the Department of Planning and Development innovation is stymied, and even people who want to add on to their own homes will be limited.

Read the full Publicola post, and be sure to contact Councilmember Mike O’Brien at Mike.Obrien@Seattle.gov or attend and speak a the hearing this Friday at 2PM in Council chambers. Urge him to rethink the City’s approach to housing, especially small-lot and microhousing. Shouldn’t the City be encouraging new ideas to meet basic needs? There are lots of ways to eat a hot dog, and even more ways to meet Seattle’s growing demand for housing. Shouldn’t we try them all?